Other prompt types

In addition to standard dashboard prompts, you can use:

• Toolbar prompts

• Date prompts

• List prompts

In this topic:

• Create a toolbar prompt

• Create a date prompt

• Create a list prompt

Create a toolbar prompt

Toolbar prompts let users refine report results in a dashboard. First, show the prompt toolbar. Then add and configure prompts on it.

1. Open a dashboard that contains at least one parameterized report.

2. Click the Edit Content icon to open the editing options in the dashboard.

3. In the bottom section, inside the Objects pane, select Prompts to access the Prompt pane.

4. Enable Show Prompt Toolbar to display the prompt toolbar to dashboard users.

5. Click Add to add a prompt.

   The Prompt dialog box appears.

6. In the Name field, enter the title for the prompt toolbar.

7. In the Control box, select the control type for the prompt options.

   For example, choose a drop-down control if you want a list that opens when users click it.

8. Ensure that Static List is selected under Type.

Customize toolbar prompts

1. In the Data box, click Add.

   The List Value dialog box appears.

2. In the Label field, enter the option name as you want it to appear to dashboard users.

3. In the Value field, enter the parameter source name.

   If you are using the Steel Wheels sample, enter Classic Cars.

4. Add labels and values for each parameter you want to filter. Click Close to exit the List Value dialog box.

   If you are filtering an Analyzer report and using a static list, you can add the option All. This option drops the filter from the report and shows all values.

5. In the Control Properties box, under Initially Selected, choose which item you want to appear first in the prompt list.

   Choose Use First Value to set the default to the first value in the list. Choose Specify to set a specific value.

6. Click OK.

7. In the Objects pane, choose the title of the report you want to filter. Click the Parameters tab and choose the correct Source for the parameter from the list.

   The source should be the name of your prompt.

8. Click Save.

Create a date prompt

The date picker prompt lets users select values based on calendar dates. When creating a date picker prompt, you must set a date format. By default, the format is yyyy-MM-dd.

The date picker prompt uses Dojo date formats. In the past, this component was based on the jQuery datepicker. To support legacy formats, old formats are converted automatically.

Not all formats are supported or make sense when a date is selected. Anything with less granularity than a unit of "day" defaults to the Dojo format. Use formats from d to y that the date picker control supports. For example, yyyy-MM-dd, yy-M-d, and d/MM/yyyy are valid.

As a result, the pattern can be any combinations of the following patterns of years, quarters, months, and days:

Pattern	Description	Example Date: Monday, January 4, 2016
G	era	AD
y or yy	year (two digit)	16
yyy or yyyy	year (four digit)	2016
q or Q	quarter (one digit)	1
M	month numeric (no leading zero)	1
MM	month numeric (two digit)	01
MMM	month name short	Jan
MMMM	month name long	January
d	day of month (no leading zero)	4
dd	day of month (two digit)	04
D	day of the year	4
E	day of the week	2

Create a list prompt

When you create a metadata list, you define a query to retrieve a list of display names and corresponding values from a metadata data source provided by your administrator.

You must have a data table or chart that contains at least one parameter. Otherwise, the prompt control will not work.

Filter dialog box

1. In the dashboard page, under General Settings, select Prompts.

   The Prompt Editor appears on the right. No prompts are listed if this is the first time you are assigning prompts.

2. To display a prompt toolbar to users of the dashboard, enable Show Prompt Toolbar.

   A placeholder for the prompt toolbar appears at the top of the dashboard.

3. Click the Add icon to add a prompt.

   The Prompts dialog box appears.

4. In the Prompts dialog box, enter a Name for your prompt.

5. Under Data Type, choose Metadata List.

6. Click Select to choose the data source that contains the content you need to set options from the drop-down list, then click OK.

   The Query Editor opens.

7. In the Query Editor, build a query to choose either:

   • A single column, which represents both a name and a value.

   • Two columns, representing the display names and corresponding values.

   If a single-column query is defined, the values of that column are used for both display names and values.

8. Click OK to exit the Query Editor.

   Your options appear under Selected Items in the Prompts dialog box.

9. Under Control Properties, enter a default Label and Value for the initially selected option in your prompt control.

10. Select a Label to display in the prompt control.

    This is the user-friendly name that users will see in the dashboard.

11. Select the Value.

    This is the value in the database that is associated with the label you selected in the previous step.

12. If applicable, choose your Display type from the list.

    Some prompt controls let you choose the position of your prompt options. If you have a long list of options, such as a list of cities, options may not appear correctly in the user console unless you change the Display type to Horizontal.

13. Click OK.

The list of values appears in the prompts toolbar in the dashboard.

Create a cascading list prompt

A cascading prompt changes based on the value a user selects. For example, when the value in the drop-down list Country changes, that prompt is automatically applied to the second prompt, City, which changes its values.

This task uses the example of creating a country-city cascading prompt.

Cascading prompt example

1. For Type, select Metadata List to create the drop-down prompt Country.

   

   Filter from metadata list
2. For Type, select SQL List, which includes a parameter, ${selected_country}, in its associated query for the check box prompt City.

   

   Filter from SQL list
3. Set the Default Value for the selected_country parameter to USA with New York City (NYC) as the initially selected value for the check box prompt.

To link the City prompt to the Country prompt, choose another Source for the selected_country parameter. Choose the Country prompt as the alternate source. When the prompts are linked, users can choose a country, then choose one or more cities in that country.

Using this example, you can now add a data table, chart, or other content in the dashboard that can be driven by the prompt you created. If you add a pie chart to the dashboard, the pie chart can show the percentage of sales per city. In the Query Editor, create a parameter, {City}, with an extended default value: NYC|Las Vegas. The resulting pie chart displays values for New York City and Las Vegas. Under the Parameters tab associated with the pie chart, change the Source value for the City parameter to the City prompt.

When the report is saved, dashboard users can see results for a country and multiple cities in that country.